Franklin Preschoolers Take Flight

Today we had a busy day filled with our youngest group of students yet, and some fellow educators. 

We started by visiting the wonderful students of Franklin Preschool in Berkeley, CA and taught at three different classes. We asked them all the same thing. How do we know that a bird is a bird?

Is that soft stuff fur, or what?

Learning how to be gentle with Cooper the hawk.

Everybody gets one touch.

After some careful observation we started with our first clue as to what a bird is. They can fly!

Darrow and the kids aloft in the schoolyard.

So, we set off in flight from the nest to explore the playground and look for some birds. We were hoping that our observations would bring us closer to finding out what makes a bird a bird and not a lizard, or a butterfly? And, what did we find? An answer! A feather!

Scientists at work!

What do birds have and no other creatures have? Birds have feathers. So, we took the opportunity to unveil another treat from the Ken Norris Center for Natural History. A fully intact Cooper's Hawk wing. The students helped us count the feathers on this wing. 20 primary flight feathers!

Turns out practicing counting is fun if you count fun stuff.

Special thanks to all the teachers at Franklin, the brilliant students, and our good friend Shoshie, who teaches at Franklin, for organizing our visit.

In the evening we journeyed to Slide Ranch in the Marin headlands, a nature school for elementary schools in the San Francisco bay area. Darrow taught some of the staff about making fire with friction and we got to talk with them about how we lead our Bird School style walks with kids.

Slide Ranchers creating a coal with a bow drill kit.

Looking at birds through different lenses.

Watching a Black Phoebe at sunset on the Slide Ranch property.

Thanks to Justine Faust for bringing us to meet some inspiring naturalists in an inspiring place. A great and full day today and another two schools on the horizon for tomorrow!

Exciting Announcements and More Birding!

We arrived in the bay area just before Halloween and with enough time to create some bird costumes for ourselves. We took a few days off from teaching and have been getting ready for a full week of workshops in the bay! Just yesterday, we led an open sunset bird walk in Tilden Regional Park for the Berkeley community which included some Berkeley grad students and alumni.

Female Black-Crowned Night Heron

Male Black-Crowned Night Heron

We got some great looks at the Black-Crowned Night Herons and were able to see the differences between the male and female birds. They stood completely still for all of the time that our attention spans could take and allowed us to get quite close for some good photos.

Kevin talking about the lengthy Mallard mating season and the identification differences between duck species

Sunset on Lake Anza

Checking out the beautiful Bufflehead ducks! Check them out here!

The Night Heron perched over a mixed flock of American Coots, Mallards,  Pied-Billed Grebes, Common Mergansers, and Buffleheads

Sasha getting good looks at the Night Heron

In other news, we have been waiting for weeks to be able to make this announcement and now, we are official! Just as we began our project, we applied for a grant through an incredible organization called The Pollination Project. This organization gives thousands of dollars to budding social change organizations and projects (such as ours) in order to help folks make real change happen. The Pollination Project just made their official announcement about our grant. 

Check out the announcement at:  http://thepollinationproject.org/grants-awarded/kevin-condon-and-darrow-feldstein-the-bird-school-project/. 

They are funding some of the most inspiring and creative projects we have ever seen so be sure to check out heir whole website and learn about all of the amazing things that people are doing all around the world!